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Star Trek Online - Engage!

Posts

I think multi-player ships could work. It's not that much different than putting together a raid in most other MMOs. Anyone who says that no one will want to play a support role is ignoring every tank/healer in every other MMO out there. However, even WoW is looking to adopt a two spec system, so maybe they could give everyone a combat skill set, then let you pick a profission/specialty. So even if you're good with a hypospray, you can still bust out a phaser and pew pew when needed.

Here's a plan for muli-player ships:

Let's say that instead of guilds, you have "fleets" and instead of groups/raids, you have "crews". Instead of money, you earn "individual requisition" and when working with your fleet, you earn "fleet requisition". Everyone at any time can requisition a basic version of a 1 or 5 crew ship for free. These basic ships are good enough to run starter missions. At any time, you can flag your basic ship as "Individual Custom" and spend individual requisition on better parts. This custom ship then becomes saved to you. So you can request a basic ship, flag it as custom, then put a buch of science stuff on it, then request another basic ship, flag it as custom, then kit it out with combat parts, etc. This way, if you feel like logging in to run some solo missions, then you can just jump in your custom 1 man shuttle and be on your way. Or if you want to run some small multi-player stuff, you can invite some people to join your 5-man crew (after seeing who's got the best 5-man ship for the job).

Now if you get enough people together to form a fleet (guild) then anyone in the fleet can requisiton basic 10/25 man ships for free. There are entry level 10/25 man missions that award fleet requisition that you can run with a basic ship. Fleet Commanders (guild masters) and officers can flag a ship as "Fleet Custom", and then spend the Fleet's requisition upgrading it, and set permissions on who gets to use it. Completeing 10/25 man missions would award Fleet and Individual Requisition points. So if you only have 7 on, and you invite 3 from another fleet to help out, your fleet gets 70% of the fleet req., and the other guys' fleet gets 30%, and everyone gets a chunk of individual req.

Playing a tank or healer is still being a part of it, playing some simulated console screen or minigame is a much bigger disconnect from the action. A tank still punches people in the face, a crew engineer will only know what's going on by the number of fuses that blow up in his face.

And a space game where I get to play a shuttle pilot 99% of the time...whoo, that sounds just dandy.

Edit: I would love to see multicrew ships...in another game. Because I can only see them being fun if you have 1 pilot, and everyone else gets a gun station...maybe, maaaaaaybe there's a way to make one or two "support" roles not suck. But this doesn't work in Star Trek, because Star Trek ships aren't built like that.

What, you gonna call that effete genius and his pussy-whipped Brokeback Spacestation friend to back you up? You're better off inviting Tits Ahoy or the MILF and her magic candle dildo from the other shows.

I get the Bashir and OBrien reference, but who are Tits and the MILF? Seven and Janeway? Troi and Crusher?

"MILF and her magic candle dildo" is definately Crusher, from that episode on planet Ireland with the ghost candle that banged all the women in her family for generations.

I don't know what's worse. The fact that I watch too much TV, or the fact that I actually retain most of that knowledge.

Tits Ahoy is 7 of 9. And, yes, the MILF is Crusher. I remember the look on Picard's face when he walked in on her mid-orgasm. I have no idea how Patrick Stewart pulled that off.

He also stressed that you don't start out with the rank "Captain," you are simply a Captain of your ship. If that makes sense.

It does. In history, many naval ships were (and still) considered too small to warrant a Captain to command. So many small sloops in the past were 'captained' by lieutenants or even midshipmen, usually given assignments with fleets or in very close proximity to more experienced officers. A good example of this would be captured ships, who were usually given a skeleton crew and a junior officer and given orders to make for the nearest friendly port.

However, naval tradition also dictates that the commander of any ship is called 'Captain', regardless of actually military rank, or lack thereof.

I think multi-player ships could work. It's not that much different than putting together a raid in most other MMOs. Anyone who says that no one will want to play a support role is ignoring every tank/healer in every other MMO out there. However, even WoW is looking to adopt a two spec system, so maybe they could give everyone a combat skill set, then let you pick a profission/specialty. So even if you're good with a hypospray, you can still bust out a phaser and pew pew when needed.

The thing is, you're not talking about putting together a raid. You're talking about core gameplay. Putting together a functioning raid is a pain in the ass for alot of folks. Having to do so every single time you want to enjoy any aspect of the game would ultimately limit the game to purely hardcore players with a shitload of time on their hands to recruit and assemble a working crew for their play session. Even if you're a hardcore player what happens every time someone from your crew has to log? You'll end up having to spend time recruiting a replacement. Now given how often players log in and out of a game and the length of the average play session for most folks, and you'd probably spend more time recruiting folks than you would actually getting things done in the game.

I think multi-player ships could work. It's not that much different than putting together a raid in most other MMOs. Anyone who says that no one will want to play a support role is ignoring every tank/healer in every other MMO out there. However, even WoW is looking to adopt a two spec system, so maybe they could give everyone a combat skill set, then let you pick a profission/specialty. So even if you're good with a hypospray, you can still bust out a phaser and pew pew when needed.

The thing is, you're not talking about putting together a raid. You're talking about core gameplay. Putting together a functioning raid is a pain in the ass for alot of folks. Having to do so every single time you want to enjoy any aspect of the game would ultimately limit the game to purely hardcore players with a shitload of time on their hands to recruit and assemble a working crew for their play session. Even if you're a hardcore player what happens every time someone from your crew has to log? You'll end up having to spend time recruiting a replacement. Now given how often players log in and out of a game and the length of the average play session for most folks, and you'd probably spend more time recruiting folks than you would actually getting things done in the game.

That would be true if there were only ships that required 10-25 people. I was thinking that ships that required 10-25 people to pilot would be owned by guilds, for doing guild stuff. Everyone could also have their own ships that they could pilot solo and ships that required a small 3-5 man crew for doing PuGs and stuff.

And the second half of your statement seems to completely ignore the existance of raiding guilds in every other MMO. It is just a proven fact that it is possible to organize groups of 10, 25 even 40 people to do stuff in an MMO for an extended period of time. So long as they don't make the ships totally inoperable if you have less than the required crew. For instance:

Good: You are missing an engineer. Your shield recharge rate does not get a 10% bonus.
Bad: You are missing an engineer. You cannot turn left.

As I mentioned in my idea, you can have your own personal shuttle/fighter that can fly solo, and frigates for doing small PuGs that you would own directly. You only have to bust out the battlecruisers and Enterprise class ships when it's raid night. The make or break aspect of multi-player ship idea, though, would be to make all the jobs enjoyable and engaging. I do not think this is as impossible as people think.

So basically it would not be end game raiding... it would be raiding right form the get go. I mean... that sounds pretty awesome to me. I never did any raiding in WoW, but I raided in DDO a LOT. Everyone working together for the betterment of the team is an outstanding gameplay mechanic that needs to feature more prominently in games. Personally I would love the type of game we're theorizing... 10 to 25 man crews working together to overcome that unknown terror lurking off the starboard bow. Hey, there's a nebula, let's go exploring! I would gladly rearrange my schedule to accomodate 3 hours a night three times a week to boldy go... places.

And since there hasn't been a Star Trek MMO yet, there's no telling how many people are going to jump into this with both feet. I'd venture to say that Hardcore will never have been defined so well as by the crowd that would flock to this game. (the game that doesn't exist, not the crappy knockoff that is actually coming out.)

I think multi-player ships could work. It's not that much different than putting together a raid in most other MMOs. Anyone who says that no one will want to play a support role is ignoring every tank/healer in every other MMO out there. However, even WoW is looking to adopt a two spec system, so maybe they could give everyone a combat skill set, then let you pick a profission/specialty. So even if you're good with a hypospray, you can still bust out a phaser and pew pew when needed.

The thing is, you're not talking about putting together a raid. You're talking about core gameplay. Putting together a functioning raid is a pain in the ass for alot of folks. Having to do so every single time you want to enjoy any aspect of the game would ultimately limit the game to purely hardcore players with a shitload of time on their hands to recruit and assemble a working crew for their play session. Even if you're a hardcore player what happens every time someone from your crew has to log? You'll end up having to spend time recruiting a replacement. Now given how often players log in and out of a game and the length of the average play session for most folks, and you'd probably spend more time recruiting folks than you would actually getting things done in the game.

That would be true if there were only ships that required 10-25 people. I was thinking that ships that required 10-25 people to pilot would be owned by guilds, for doing guild stuff. Everyone could also have their own ships that they could pilot solo and ships that required a small 3-5 man crew for doing PuGs and stuff.

And the second half of your statement seems to completely ignore the existance of raiding guilds in every other MMO. It is just a proven fact that it is possible to organize groups of 10, 25 even 40 people to do stuff in an MMO for an extended period of time. So long as they don't make the ships totally inoperable if you have less than the required crew. For instance:

Good: You are missing an engineer. Your shield recharge rate does not get a 10% bonus.
Bad: You are missing an engineer. You cannot turn left.

As I mentioned in my idea, you can have your own personal shuttle/fighter that can fly solo, and frigates for doing small PuGs that you would own directly. You only have to bust out the battlecruisers and Enterprise class ships when it's raid night. The make or break aspect of multi-player ship idea, though, would be to make all the jobs enjoyable and engaging. I do not think this is as impossible as people think.

This is pretty much exactly how I would want it. Give me the option of getting a few buds together on a single ship and wreck havoc, make the ship a bit more powerful for it. However, you can go mess around in your own ship or even have some computer allies to take over the other jobs.

As for making them enjoyable, I am thinking two different screens. On the left side would be something that the person can do inside the ship. Mess with the engines, fix up weapons, the like. On the right side would be the ship view, allowing you to see where the captain is going and what is going on.

Additionally, they would get a skillbar based on what they are currently doing. All characters would get this skillbar, but people who specialize in said job would get more skills and they'd be stronger as well. These skills could do simple things such as healing the ship, or more complex things such as targeting a foes ship and perhaps wrecking havoc with their own engineer. This allows a person to manage his/her job and what's required (perhaps having multiple games that every job has to move back/forth between in order to counter enemy attacks) and allowing them to have a piece of the action by their own skills.

For example, let's say an engineer is working on the engine, increasing speed. Suddenly something malfunctions and the engineer has to rush off to fix it. Speed bonus vanishes in order for the engineer to fix a problem with the shields. They still get a view of the ship combat, but now the left side has turned back into a view of their avatar inside the ship, where they have to run and find the problem.

Something like that. It would make battles hectic as people would be rushing over to fix problems and cause problems with the foe's systems.

For example, let's say an engineer is working on the engine, increasing speed. Suddenly something malfunctions and the engineer has to rush off to fix it. Speed bonus vanishes in order for the engineer to fix a problem with the shields. They still get a view of the ship combat, but now the left side has turned back into a view of their avatar inside the ship, where they have to run and find the problem.

Now I want to play a Star Trek game where a ship's health is measured in unexploded consoles.

For example, let's say an engineer is working on the engine, increasing speed. Suddenly something malfunctions and the engineer has to rush off to fix it. Speed bonus vanishes in order for the engineer to fix a problem with the shields. They still get a view of the ship combat, but now the left side has turned back into a view of their avatar inside the ship, where they have to run and find the problem.

You and I, my friend, we have much in common. I was thinking along similar lines, wherein the players' ship is an instance. When at a console you get a 3rd person ship perspective which gives you data relevant to your job: shields, engines, weapons, etc. But as your ship takes damage, you can switch your perspective to just you running around in your ship instance trying to fix stuff as an engineer, or maybe save lives as a medic. But then the shields go down for a few seconds and UH-OH BOARDING PARTIES. So now there are pitched phaser battles going on on board your ship while the bridge crew is still trading photon torpedoes with the enemy ship.

Having your ship as an instance could also mean that certain missions take place on your ship. Like whatever system they use to give you missions sends you to some derilict ship, and while investigating that, some alien predator gets on your ship and starts killing crewmen. So that whole mission is you and your friends trying to track down the ailen menace on your own ship.

I guess this is all moot though, since they're gonig with the 1 player per ship thing. Eve turned out pretty well using this model so this might still be good. It always seemed pretty rare in the show that multiple Federation ships turned up at the same place unless something big was going down. When that one Borg ship attacked Earth, (Wolf 359 was it?) they had a few dozen ships there to defend. Gonna be weird seeing 5 Enterpises show up for a group mission.

Is it one of those "hurr, spaceships, has to be like EVE" sort of things? The entire model of EVE's gameplay doesn't even work in the Star Trek universe. I somehow doubt you are going to go siege enemy structures in the Enterprise, to lower their regional influence, so you can take their stations from them....but hell, who knows.

From reading this it sounds like there will be some PVP but I agree it looks like a stronger PVE focus which is a good thing, IMO.

Zinc: The universe of Star Trek Online is shaped and changed by the actions of the players. The Federation and the Klingon Empire will be competing for influence and resources throughout the galaxy and players can influence the results through PvP battles and a system we're calling Competitive PvE.

The actions, victories and defeats of you and your faction will affect how the economy and history of Star Trek Online unfolds. Exploration is always happening â€“ expect to see new planets and races discovered that were unknown the last time you logged in. Your actions could be the deciding factor on whether these new planets side with the Federation or the Klingons.

From reading this it sounds like there will be some PVP but I agree it looks like a stronger PVE focus which is a good thing, IMO.

Zinc: The universe of Star Trek Online is shaped and changed by the actions of the players. The Federation and the Klingon Empire will be competing for influence and resources throughout the galaxy and players can influence the results through PvP battles and a system we're calling Competitive PvE.

The actions, victories and defeats of you and your faction will affect how the economy and history of Star Trek Online unfolds. Exploration is always happening â€“ expect to see new planets and races discovered that were unknown the last time you logged in. Your actions could be the deciding factor on whether these new planets side with the Federation or the Klingons.

Sounds like multiplayer Spore Space Stage. Seriously... they should get together and import the best spore critters as new races. I mean... there's roughly 2 million different creatures now, some of them -have- to be vaguely humanoid and fit into the setting.

Speaking of vaguely humanoid... anyone remember the TNG episode where they found out why most of the known races are vaguely humanoid?

Spoiler:

They were seeded on planets that mysteriously formed a helix shape in space. So Vulcans, Romulans, Klingons and Humans (and several other races) were all originally from the same Ancient Race that died off for some reason.

playing a romulan would be hella annoying. finally get that shiny new promotion to captain then your second in command goes and kills you for the position. you had JUST killed YOUR captain for that spot! damn

Speaking of vaguely humanoid... anyone remember the TNG episode where they found out why most of the known races are vaguely humanoid?

Spoiler:

They were seeded on planets that mysteriously formed a helix shape in space. So Vulcans, Romulans, Klingons and Humans (and several other races) were all originally from the same Ancient Race that died off for some reason.

Speaking of vaguely humanoid... anyone remember the TNG episode where they found out why most of the known races are vaguely humanoid?

Spoiler:

They were seeded on planets that mysteriously formed a helix shape in space. So Vulcans, Romulans, Klingons and Humans (and several other races) were all originally from the same Ancient Race that died off for some reason.

Speaking of vaguely humanoid... anyone remember the TNG episode where they found out why most of the known races are vaguely humanoid?

Spoiler:

They were seeded on planets that mysteriously formed a helix shape in space. So Vulcans, Romulans, Klingons and Humans (and several other races) were all originally from the same Ancient Race that died off for some reason.